Gautama Buddha

Gautama Buddha is honored by hundreds of millions of people as the teacher who found the way out of suffering and showed it to others. In the ascension teachings he holds a further office. He is the Lord of the World, the one who keeps the flame of life burning for the whole planet from the etheric city of Shamballa.

His presence is described as vast and very quiet. People who meet him in meditation rarely report words at first. They report stillness, a golden light that seems to come from everywhere at once, and the sense that nothing needs to be added to the present moment for it to be complete.

A word of respect. Gautama is the founder of a living religion with its own scriptures and lineages. Nothing on this page is offered as a correction of the Dharma as it has been handed down, and nothing here asks a Buddhist to accept the ascension teachings' account of him.

From Prince to Buddha

The story is known across the world. A prince was raised in luxury and shielded from every sight of pain. When at last he saw sickness, old age and death, and a wandering monk at peace in the midst of them, he left the palace to find the cause of suffering and its end. He tried every severe discipline of his time and found that none of them freed the mind. He then sat beneath a tree, resolved not to rise until he understood, and in the night he awoke.

What he taught afterward he called the middle way: neither indulgence nor self-punishment, but clear and kindly attention to what is actually happening. The ascension teachings regard that awakening as the completion of his own path on Earth. They add that he did not leave when it was done.

The Office of Lord of the World

The teachings relate that when Sanat Kumara came from Venus to hold the flame of life for a darkened Earth, the first of Earth's own children to respond were the two who are now known as Gautama and Maitreya. Over a very long time, through many lives of preparation, Gautama grew able to hold the office that Sanat Kumara had carried alone.

When he was ready, he took it up. The teachings place this in the middle of the twentieth century. Sanat Kumara was then free to return to Venus as Regent, and Gautama has kept the flame at Shamballa ever since. It is said that the thread of light which runs from the threefold flame in every human heart to the central flame of Shamballa is now in his keeping.

It is a remarkable thing to consider. The office of Lord of the World, once held by a being from another planet, is now held by a soul who was born on this one, who suffered as we suffer, and who found the way through. The teachings see in this a sign of how far the Earth has come.

Service to the Ascension

Gautama's gift to the ascension is peace of a particular kind: not the peace of avoidance, but the peace that comes from seeing clearly. A great deal of human suffering, he taught, is added by the mind to what is actually occurring. As that addition falls away, the heart becomes still enough to hold more light, and the ascension proceeds of its own accord.

He is especially close to those who meditate, to those who are learning to sit with pain without running from it, and to anyone who has tried hard to be spiritual and become tired of trying. To such people he offers the middle way again: gentler than they have been with themselves, and more honest.

Many students keep the full moon of the spring month of Taurus, which in many lands is celebrated as the festival of his birth, awakening and passing, as a time of special meditation. The teachings say that a great blessing is released at that full moon each year. It asks nothing of anyone except a quiet hour.

What Gautama Teaches

• Pain comes to every life. Most suffering is what we add to it.
• Do not believe a teaching because of who gave it. Test it in your own life.
• The middle way is not a compromise. It is the place where clear sight becomes possible.
• Peace is not something you achieve. It is what remains when you stop adding to the noise.

When to Call on Gautama

• Learning to meditate, or returning to meditation after a long gap
• Peace in the middle of grief, illness or uncertainty
• Release from harsh self-discipline and spiritual striving
• Seeing a situation clearly, without the story the mind has built around it
• Holding steady for others in a time of crisis

How to Work With Gautama

Sit comfortably with your spine upright and your hands at rest. Let the breath be as it is. Picture a small golden light in the center of the chest, and above your head a much greater golden light, still and wide as a lake at dawn. Say inwardly: Lord Gautama, I am willing to see clearly. Then simply sit, noticing each breath, for as long as is comfortable. When the mind wanders, return without scolding. He is said to teach above all by example, and his example is patience.

An Invocation

Beloved Gautama, Lord of the World,
you who keep the flame of life for all of us,
let me be still enough to see what is.
Take from me the suffering I have added,
and leave me the peace that was always here.

A Word From Gautama

You come to me asking for more. More light, more understanding, more progress. I understand. I asked the same, for a long time.

Sit down. Breathe once, and notice that you are breathing. That is the whole of it. Everything else I could tell you is only a longer way of saying this.

Received by Ilse Varrow

Related Entries

• Sanat Kumara
• Maitreya
• The Spiritual Hierarchy
• Etheric Retreats